Good morrow lemmings and welcome back, after an unpredictable absence, to Questionable Time. I won’t go into the details that, well, detail said absence, only that I’ll slowly be getting back into the swing of things from now on. So yes, expect my churning out of QTs to gradually accelerate by each passing week until I start posting them before the actual episode airs.

A lot has happened in politics over the summer, but I don’t need to tell you that! I’ll merely let this picture I made a couple of months ago do the talking for me:

Fig. 1

So yes. Anyway. On with the show, comrades.

Mayday! Mayday!

Our line-up for this week consists of Priti Patel, noted padawan of Iain Duncan Smith, wearing a hip pair of nerd glasses, Lisa Nandy, the up-and-coming soft-lefty, who seems scared of said nerd glasses, Tim Farron, leader of the Lib Dems, who are now so irrelevant that QT can easily get their dang leader on the programme, Stewart Hosie, Deputy Leader of the SNP, probably known as Big Ears (and one of ~the 55~, Dimbleby states – because you’re one down, remember? Remember that, SNP? Eh? Eh? Eh? Dimbleby does), and Melanie Phillips/Noddy – a woman who needs no introduction! So let’s leave it at that.

Our first question hits like a freight train and oh boy oh boy I wonder what it could ever be after my long, long absence. Something new and fresh? Appropriate for the changing world of politics in the year of our Lord Labour leadership upset 2015? Nope, you gets your immigration question and youse are gonna like it. Glad those few weeks we had to pretend to care about drowned children are over. Anyway, let’s all debate Theresa May dissin’ them good.

Tim Farron, aka Owen Jones’ secret dad, calls Theresa the forthcoming leader of the ‘nasty party’ she once so criticised, and accuses her of stoking division. As a completely unrelated side note, you can’t have a leader of a political party named Tim, it’s just not right. Meanwhile, Pretty Polly Patel is tasked with defending AMayzeballs. She says the last generation of immigrants were cool dudes, but in these scary modern times of ours Labour has ruined immigrants and made them all lazy scroungers. Tch, you had a better class of immigrants back in the day! Lisa hits back saying that Theresa hands out jolly, candy-like contracts to private companies willy-nilly who don’t even curr about integration – and that she’s offensive, for that matter, like a dog that’s pissed on the carpet. Priti stares through her glasses menacingly. To be fair, they are very nice glasses. Then a man with a Union Jack pin on his lapel talks about ‘swaths’ so that’s where we are now. Then another man and a woman argue about whether immigrants ‘mix’, like a tasty smoothie.

I’m astonished by the ‘vituperation’ heaped on Theresa, says Melanie. I’m not sure what that word means. Anyway, she agrees with her, and sticks a metaphorical Melanie-style middle finger up to the IoD, as well. You can’t trust them and their dirty lies. Lisa Nandy slowly, ever so slowly, shakes her head. Then makes peculiar motions with her mouth. Then furrows her brow. She’s going to jump over the table and punch Melz in a moment.

Stewart ‘Hose-down’ Hosie says May’s speech was a pitch to be leader. Ain’t nuthin’ worse than that. Priti goes off on a tangent praising Jeremy Hunt, possibly angling for promotion herself. Stay tuned folks! In this topsy-turvy world of ours, anything could happen. Even Tim Farron himself could lead a (formerly) major political party. As a completely unrelated side note, doesn’t Tim look like a hobbit?

“If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine” – Iain Duncan Smith, shortly before being replaced as Tory leader, predicting his own resurrection

Next: cutting tax credits – yay or a big horsey neigh? How, tuts disapproving audience lady, can we believe baconcrotch when he says wants to take people out of poverty? Why is Priti, pointy-pointying her hand around, wearing what looks like a friendship bracelet? Judging by her answer I certainly don’t want to be friends with her. But the living wage will replace those phony tax credits, she argues. Well, Pritt Stick, it’s not a ‘living wage’ for me, a poor struggling young person! But she presses on regardless. Use the force, Priti, the disembodied voice of IDS tells her…

Fig. 2

Lisa gets heated and says that 200,000 people will be pushed into poverty, like when some snot-nosed kid in the playground pushes you down a dirty slide. Tim sits primly with his fingers clasped, not wanting to get involved. They’re telling us we don’t work hard enough, says Lisa, trying to act statesmanlike (stateswomanlike? Statespersonlike? Stateslike?!) in case Jez C accidentally gets pushed down an open manhole tomorrow afternoon.

ABSOLUTELY I WILL ANSWER THAT barks Priti. We have to make savings on welfare and difficult choices. DIFFICULT FOR WHO interrupts Lisa. Stewart tuts and looks like he’s angrily sketching something. Tories neverrr make society fairrrerrr says he, in a lovely accent which I love. He then calls us ‘friends’. Super. Priti gives him a death glare, magnified through her glasses, and refutes him. Then Melanie says something along the lines of that she wants young people to starve, but honestly I was paying as much attention to her as Priti was, who was turning a page and not even looking at Melz Bellz, her head leaning on her hand. As a completely unrelated side note, Tim is doing okay, I guess, but will anyone even care?

Lisa gets into a ””spirited debate”” with a woman in the audience who is jealous that her friends with kids have got more money than her. A man in a sharp suit sporting overly-groomed hair chips in to agree. The people who are being affected work as hard as you do, sir, says Tim. Ooh!

Then Lisa and Priti argue about what or what not constitutes a living wage. What is a living wage? We just don’t know.

Jeremy Corbyn/Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been/Lives in a dream

Will we have to side with ASSad and POOtin to win in Syria? (Childish nicknames both! Coincidence? I think not!)

Putin is not going to defeat ISIS because he’s weakshit, says Melanie, weakshit that’s in love with Assad. Or thereabouts. Stewart sensibly adds that any action has to be approved by both Parliament and the UN, and involve an actual plan this time, or we’ll just be inviting more shit in our face. Lisa concurs and says that only a good plan will gain support and not just lmao bomb everything lol!!!! Tim rambles on in a similar vein to Lisa but I’m currently more terrified by Priti gritting her teeth and rolling her eyes at him. RIP hobbit, we hardly knew ye.

Next! Is Jeremy Corbyn a ‘Britain hater’? Well, he’s not showing patriotic tendencies, insinuates Priti. When you add ‘tendencies’ to that phrase, it sounds oddly dirty. Lisa sweeps back her hair with a look that could shatter glass. I’m loving the antagonism between these two, in case you couldn’t guess. David Cameron demeans his office, ooh, burn, she paraphrases. Melanie states Jeremy wants to change everything that makes Britain…Britain. What, you mean like the crap trains? Tim sticks up for Jezza a bit…but draws the line when it comes to a wishy-washy attitude towards Europe. Reminder: Lib Dems wuv Europe, in case you’ve forgotten who they are and are in need of a refresher.

Dave was in the wrong, adds Stewart, so why doesn’t he and Jezza just have a nice sit down and a cup of tea. New politics and all that. And with absolutely no spitting, punching and/or egging. I’ve got my eye on you two.